Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Robert Downey Jr., is there any movie you are not positively dreamy in?

I saw Ironman and fell for that bad-boy-good-guy thing that Mr. Downey Jr. pulls off so well. Afterward, I tried Ironman II, but I got sick and missed the theater outing with my friends — and came up $12 short! Rats! What a shit-house weekend that was.

For my next attempt, I went for Sherlock Holmes.

The Sherlock Holmes I remember from being a schoolgirl was a bumbling, fumbling, ironically over-confident fuddy duddy. I remember moors, a big black dog, and Victorian knickers-knacks galore. Surely, as an Englishman, he drank tea, more often than any 13-year old Ameican girl could fathom possible in a single day, especially while fighting crime.

This movie version of Holmes was not the Sherlock I remembered. As played by Mr. Downey Jr., this Holmes still has a bit of the bumbling qualities, but none of the fuddy duddy. His new characterization is marked by an ability to focus and be highly calculating in a spilt second, thereby trumping his rivals. These calculating moments are filmed in a slow-mo-to-quick-mo style, kind of like how I imagine The Matrix, even though I've never seen it.

Oh that's right: I've never seen The Matrix.

So Sherlock Holmes: hunky, witty, and more aloof than oafish, more cat-like than mindlessly wandering like a dumb chicken. The old Sherlock Holmes was a dumb, wandering chicken who happened to get lucky again and again. This one is a sleek puma, lazing about for ages, batting at people or objects with oversized paws until the moment that — aha! An unexpected pounce that utterly conquers and destroys the prey.

Watson has always been the brains behind the operation. Here, he is Jude Law. I don't know what else there is to say about that.

The Hound of the Baskervilles this is not. If an unseen yet mysterious big dog out in a bog doesn't do it for you, no worries. Here, we have a shirtless boxing match, a brawl in a chemistry lab, and plenty of tight camera shots on Mr. Downey Jr.'s shimmering abdomen. Never you fear about the "mystery story" aspect of Sherlock Holmes, as here, there's no grand plot to follow, no twists and turns, no cliffhanger cuts between scenes or chapters, no crime to solve. There's just a hot bod to follow across the screen.